Carter Verhaeghe Heats Up, Helps Florida Panthers Dominate Against Nashville

Carter Verhaeghe has officially put his slow start to the season behind him after scoring two goals and an assist in Thursday night’s 6-2 win over the Nashville Predators.

If two goals in three games in New York was not enough, it is now safe to say that Carter Verhaeghe has fully broken out of his season-opening slump.

Verhaeghe scored two goals and added an assist in a 6-2 beatdown of the Nashville Predators to notch his first multi-goal contest of the season. And he was every bit as dominant on both ends of the ice.

“Anytime you score goals, it feels good, and I think scoring six goals as at team feels good and guys about their game,” Verhaeghe said.”I think it starts from defending. We’re trying to defend hard and good things usually come.”

Playing the game the right way — the Panther way, if you will — and starting off shifts with strong showings in the defensive end was a focal point for Verhaeghe when he started off the season without a goal in his first eight games.

He stuck with it and kept that mindset, eventually scoring goals in two of the team’s three games in New York to wrap up October, and that is what helped him generate as many chances as he did.

Verhaeghe picked up his first goal of the night by jamming home the rebound of an Uvis Balinskis shot on his backhand with 8:42 to go in the second period to put Florida up by four goals. Then, after Steven Stamkos hammered in Nashville’s lone goal of the game, he joined Aleksander Barkov on a 2-on-1 seconds after helping quell a Predators push on his own end of the ice and resorted the four goal lead with 27.4 seconds to go in the frame.

“Statistically, it wasn’t great for [his line] at the start, but I thought going back to the Ranger game is where it started to turn for them,” coach Paul Maurice said. “Then they would eventually come.

“The goal he scored at the end of the second period, the key piece was a back check. He was skating as fast as he was for the tap-in, so he did some really fine defensive work and that line, when that’s their focus, they produce a lot of points.“

When looking at Verhaeghe’s start to the season, one thing was abundantly clear: He was generating a lot of chances, but he just was not having any luck finishing them.

The advanced stats tell the story.

Verhaeghe came into the night tied for the fifth-worst goals above expected in the NHL with -3.0, per JFresh Hockey.

In an essence, that means that he was expected to have three more goals than he has now based on the quality of chances he has created to start the season.

With that in mind, as someone who has established themselves as a quality goal scorer in the NHL by scoring at least 30 goals in each of his past two season, he knew that he would finish those chances eventually.

That day would come on Thursday.

“Sometimes, it gets a little frustrating when you’re getting your chances and you’re not scoring, but I think when you’re sticking with it, it eventually evens out,” Verhaeghe said. “It was nice to get some tonight and hopefully I can keep it going.”